Tag Archives: bates method

How long does it take to reclaim your eyesight naturally? A person with a mild prescription and belief in the process may be back to perfect vision in a few weeks. A person with an extreme prescription may take much longer, even up to several years of gradual progress.

The Bates model says the limiting factor is almost always in the mind, not the eyes. . .people who improve their vision often report a mental shift that brings more ease and relaxation to their lives.
— BetterEyesightNow.com

Considering I have relied on glasses for around two decades, I suppose I am not going to complain with “gradual progress” over a number of years (as opposed to my eyesight showing no improvement, or worse, continuing to deteriorate).

I have been told that the “mental part” is key to the success of improving one’s eyesight naturally. I find this to be 100% true.

In the past, I was using -6.00 to -7.00 degree lenses to do close-up work (reading, computer work, writing, etc.).

That I can do so now with -2.50 lenses are a big deal to me, and I look forward to seeing more improvement, even if it continues to be gradual.

In my experience, the improvement speeds up greatly when I am mentally/emotionally relaxed. It has to be a genuine state of mind “mental shift” (and not a one day “lazy” break from the usual routine).

I’ve asked that question to myself many times (LOL) throughout this natural vision improvement program.

The rate of progress varies for each person. I’ve been wearing glasses for almost 20 years, so that is literally two decades of “bad eyesight habits” to undo.

However I think there are certain things I could do to speed up my progress, since it’s right now at around -4.50 (which is a lot better than my original -7.25 prescription). Even though the improvement has taken several years, at least there is a real and lasting improvement without resorting to unhealthy or risky options such as contact lenses or LASIK surgery.

I read a blog post earlier today from iblindness.org — a lot of the things David said in his article are things that have worked for me too. So I will make a bit more of a conscious effort to implement these good eyesight habits from now on to relax/strengthen my eye muscles.

You need to remain conscious of what you’re looking at with your center of vision, meaning you can’t “space out” and think of something else. If you aren’t using your center of vision, you aren’t really looking at anything at all.

2. REGISTER THE DETAILS

It doesn’t much matter whether the next detail is far away or close to the first one. There is no faking this process — you have to be mentally engaged by thinking about what you’re looking at. Moving your central vision in the right way will feel too slow at first, but you will adapt and find you are processing details more quickly.

3. NARROW AND SPEED UP

The couple seconds you spend on each spot can be reduced as you narrow your area of clearest vision. The smaller the spot you identify as your central vision, the easier it is to look at.

4. RELAX

It’s important to stay as relaxed as possible so that you’re teaching yourself that this process is easy and something you can keep doing all day, every day as part of your normal perception.

The vision improvement process is very mental. The way to prevent your mind from running amok with random thoughts is to focus on something outside the words running in your head. Your breath is an extremely handy tool. Practice concentrating on the sound, feeling and rhythm of your breath, and remind yourself to notice it frequently as you practice the vision improvement process. It will keep you calm and focused.

5. BE INTERESTED

Genuine interest in what you’re looking at is a huge part of seeing and perceiving. Be mentally attentive to what you’re seeing. That’s one reason seeing through glasses doesn’t help your visual functioning – you might see more details through glasses, but you aren’t involved enough in the “looking” process that is just as important.

I wanted to make a quick blog post about how mental relaxation and emotional health are at the core of natural vision improvement, and maybe “natural healthy living” in general.

For the past few days, I’ve noticed my eyesight beginning to adjust to my -3.50 pair of glasses (original prescription = -7.25). I was wearing them last year and couldn’t really see that clearly with them far away in the distance. Right now I can “sense” the eye muscles beginning to be more relaxed so that they can start to adjust naturally to near and far distances. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 8 or 9 years old, so that’s quite a number of YEARS of bad eyesight habits to undo.

However I am persistent and optimistic, so despite the occasional lag here and there with my natural vision improvement program, I greatly enjoy it whenever some progress is made (which is permanent once the brain “adjusts” and accepts those new healthy eyesight habits).

I noticed that I have been very calm and relaxed over the past couple of weeks. I can be a very industrious person, but the downside to this is that I can often tire myself out just from going after what I want. When I pace myself and do things more sensibly, without completely discarding what I “feel” about things, there’s an inner calm which I’ve noticed has a direct influence on my vision.

These three paragraphs echo my thoughts on vision and emotional health:

(1) “Your thoughts can also cause you problems. The vision improvement process is very mental, and your thoughts can take you off-course so that you’re thinking about something totally unrelated as you practice looking at details. For this process to be effective, you have to remain focused on it. Your breath is an extremely handy tool for this. Practice concentrating on the sound, feeling and rhythm of your breath, and remind yourself to notice it frequently as you practice the vision improvement process. It will keep you calm and focused.”
~ David’s Method of Vision Improvement

(2) “There’s really no need to provide a list of health conditions that are partly caused by emotional stress, because every health condition is partly caused by emotional stress. Emotional stress always equals increased output by the sympathetic nervous system, which always equals accelerated aging and breakdown of your tissues…Yes, eating fresh, nutrient-dense foods is good for your health. But eating fresh, nutrient-dense foods while feeling emotionally balanced and at peace is even better.”
~ Dr. Ben Kim: Reduce Stress

(3) “It only makes sense that relaxation training, reeducation of conscious control, relieving strain, or whatever you want to call it, affects just about everything, whether it has to do with the visual system or not. Things look better than they ever did when I wore glasses. I can tolerate bright sunlight easier and see better at night. I’ve been anosmic (unable to smell) my whole life but recently started sensing certain smells. Thinking is more effortless. I’m more relaxed in general. I rarely get sick anymore. It goes on and on.

When you understand (at least some of) what mental strain is and how it manifests, it’s possible to recognize it, or the lack of it, in everyone around you. It’s in a person’s eyes, his face, his voice, the way he moves, what he says, how he reacts to things, in his whole personality.”
~ iblindness.org “About” Page (David)

The above three paragraphs are from longer and very informative, helpful articles, so do click on the links to read the entire text.

Since my early teens, I have been rather helter-skelter emotionally (due to my naturally intense nature!). Now that I’m a couple of weeks away from turning 27, my emotional nature is finally beginning to be a bit more…focused.

— Close to -4.00 (both eyes); using -2.00 for computer; no glasses for reading / writing, Sept 2012

* * *

LONGER VERSION:

I drastically cut down my computer usage over the past few days (and am not doing close-range work at “a hundred percent” either, until I’m able to do so without straining my eyes).

From these few days, I realise that I hardly blinked or moved my eyes (even small movements) whenever I was using the computer. I tend to have this habit while watching TV too (and I don’t watch *that* much television).

When I was sixteen (my prescription was around -5.75 or -6.00 then, maybe), I noticed that my eyes felt more relaxed whenever I took off my glasses. It was kind of impossible to go without glasses though (that was my O-Levels year as a student in Singapore). Now that I have the chance to “relearn good eyesight habits,” I’m doing all that I can to ensure my progress continues to go smoothly :)

My -4.00 powered lenses are very strong now for close-range work (it’s almost sharp when I’m outdoors and there’s bright sun / indoors it gets a bit fuzzy with further distances). My eyesight has always been sharper in the sunlight (noticed this from long time ago). I hope to improve my “night vision” too as I continue re-integrating the good eyesight habits into daily life/activities until they become subconscious.

Right now I blink more and my eyes / head moves a little bit more when I’m using the computer. The three “principles” of good eyesight habits are (1) movement, (2) centralisation (instead of diffusing and “trying to see everything at once,” which strains the eyes, and (3) mental relaxation (the most important and I think the hardest principle to establish, depending on one’s daily lifestyle).

Looking back from my first pair of glasses at 7.5 years old (and -0.75 prescription), all the way till around 19 or 20 years old (with my highest prescription of around -7.25), I suppose my internal levels of “stress” correlates with the higher-powered lenses (stronger prescription – more stressed = more strain = going back to the optician for another new pair of glasses). I’ve not visited an optician since 2006 (I got all my lower prescription glasses from www.zenni.com). I have always been an ambitious person, so I intend for my next trip to the optician to be a visit where I can prove to myself that I no longer need to rely on glasses to see things.

I always hated going for those eye tests, by the way. I used to really dread it and would panic whenever I needed to get it done annually when I was a student.

I grew up in Singapore and I remember crying all the way home when I was fitted with my first pair of glasses. I was just really distressed about it at 7.5 years old and didn’t wear them for about a year, after which the prescription went up to something like -1.50 and I had to wear them permanently from then on.

The opticians over there tend to deliberately make your eyesight worse (good for business), which is why I mostly loathe opticians nowadays (lol). In 2008 I noticed my eyesight beginning to deteriorate again, and I was kinda desperate not to get them higher than -7.25, which is how I found the Relearning to See book that I mentioned in the first post here.

It is heartening to know that the author of that book had an original prescription of -8.00 (oh my!). In one of the chapters, I read that he broke out in a skin rash on the left side of his body as he was improving his eyesight naturally (part of the healing crisis associated with homeopathy / the ‘natural method’ of doing things so that the body heals itself naturally).

I had a weird skin rash in the past week, and I took a few pictures.

— This first pic is the rash when it was very itchy (a few days ago / night time).

— This second picture was taken today (the spots are smaller and darker / beginning to calm down and fade away, I think).

I’ve been having vision-oriented dreams too (and occasional dreams where I don’t wear my glasses, or panic when I leave my glasses somewhere behind in the dream, lol).

Able to use -2.00 glasses for computer work, and no glasses for reading / close-range writing (for short amounts of time).

Will keep up the progress. I don’t mind glasses at all as an accessory, but I hate having to rely on them so heavily for daily work and to just bloody hell SEE properly.

The first time I heard about the Bates Method was when I was around 16 years old. My interest/curiosity was piqued. If other people could find success with it, perhaps I could too.

I’m more determined to one day have perfect vision without glasses (like when I was a very young kid), than to lose to the opticians who would have me (and people like me, in terms of eyesight) enslaved to their glasses / contact lenses all in the name of business. I know not *all* opticians are this way (some do support natural eyesight methods/classes), but the vast majority of opticians I personally experienced fall into the “$$$ first” category.

Relearning and maintaining good eyesight habits is far more important and sensible to me than being enslaved to the bad habits of unscrupulous opticians.

P.S. During my last two visits to an optician, some astigmatism thing was added to my lenses. I removed those immediately when I ordered my lower powered glasses online, and have had no problems with “astigmatism” since (I never believed I had that problem).

Like this:

I had really bad acne during the past year (I have the proof and before/after photos here on jessINK). I also slipped back into some of my old bad habits and sort of forgot about improving my eyesight naturally (there were a host of other things I was getting stressed about!).

Fortunately, two friends recently (on separate occasions) said something about eyesight, which prompted me to kick-start my efforts with improving eyesight naturally. I’m still hovering at -4.50 maybe, for long distances (my eyesight’s better in bright sunlight). As I wrote in my first post here and the ‘about’ page, I’m still pretty determined to get my prescription down to -4.00 at a minimum.

I’m back to using slightly lower-powered glasses for computer work, and remembering to take breaks when using the computer / not using glasses around the house and that kind of thing. I kind of feel happier / more relaxed in general when I remember to do these little things and keep working on re-integrating healthy eyesight habits into my daily life :)

I hope to be able to update this blog with a post or two next year with good news (that I’ve managed to drop my prescription down to -4.00, from -7.25 originally). My eyesight’s pretty sharp at -5.00 right now (I use the -5.00 for driving), though I might have to spend a wee little bit of time allowing the eyes to focus (if I’m looking at really small text from a certain distance, for instance).

// From left to right: -2.50 spectacles; -3.00 spectacles; -3.50 spectacles. Can almost see clearly with -4.00 spectacles, as of May 2011. My highest was -7.25 (you can read my Amazon.com log for more details).

QUICK BACKGROUND INFO:

I’ve worn glasses since 1994. My eyesight got steadily worse over each year (most intensely during my early teen years), till it reached an all-time high of -7.25 degrees (short sighted / myopia / can’t see clearly for distance).

In 2008, my vision was starting to get “fuzzy” with my -7.25 glasses. I was in Maine, USA at this point in time. I remember sitting at the computer and thinking to myself that there surely must be a natural way to improve one’s own eyesight. After all, most humans aren’t naturally born with vision problems.

I did some Googling, and chanced upon Thomas R. Quackenbush’s book, Relearning To See (which is based on the Bates method). You should definitely get that book, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts behind the natural way of improving eyesight.

Here’s my original review/”log” that I posted on Amazon.com:

Review for ‘Relearning to Live’, December 12, 2008

In one of the reviews in the first two pages of the book, someone comments that the book could really be titled “Relearning to Live”. I heartily agree. A lot of the 5-star reviews say it as it is.

Compared to the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on eyeglasses, eighteen dollars to read about improving eyesight (to the point where eyeglasses aren’t needed–truly!), seems to be a bit of a paradox. I was a bit skeptical at first, but the will to improve my eyesight by natural means, was stronger than doubt. I believe this is an important step, as one has to assume responsibility for their own health and well-being (as quoted by a holistic health practitioner, somewhere in the book).

This book may very well be the best eighteen dollars I’ve invested in. It is of incredibly high standard and quality. To say the least, Mr. Quackenbush has a thorough, comprehensive, and extensive understanding of Bates’ method and vision.

I started out at -7.25 (with -0.25 astigmatism–which I never believed I needed); currently I’m about -5.50 (no astigmatism). My -7.25s were getting fuzzy around Feb 2008. Yesterday, I tried on my original -7.25s, and I’ve better than perfect eyesight with them. This would be a total impossibility, had I not gotten this book.

Many optometrists have a negative view of Bates’ teaching. Why, of course. If everyone had good eyesight, a whole bunch of optometrists would go out of business overnight.

For me, the first few days were a bit trippy. Headaches, etc. I will not forget the day my vision “sharpened” with a -6.00 pair. I was walking around in a store and it just happened.

“Don’t stare, don’t strain”, are two golden rules to remember. The reading material will help you remember and put those (and other) good eye habits into practice. Yes, it takes dedication. Yes, lasik is “fast”. Read the book and you’ll see the price you pay for permanently tampering with (i.e: cutting) your corneas.

Personally, I do not intend to let Bates’ (3 decades of research; was forced to resign from his graduate teaching position due to his contemporary, un-orthodox views) and this author’s beneficial work to mankind, go to waste.